Paul Vs Paul Post-Mortem

By way of post-mortem of this afternoon's epic Paul vs Paul cage-match, we reflect on the various headlines the two gentlemen made during the event and in the context of the credibility with which one of the gentlemen discusses his ability to manage the world and the 'ease' with which he and his henchmen can control inflation (and that an unmanaged economy is subject to 'extreme volatility'), we remind readers of the post-WWII years and the extreme swings in purchasing power that their so-called managed economy created - a period which Krugman explicitly pointed out as golden years for the post-depressionary period.

Summarizing the words and thoughts of a megalomaniacal Keynesian dream-maker is hard but the following effluent effusive comments via Bloomberg will provide the much-needed color on this afternoon's Bloomberg TV appearance:

*KRUGMAN SAYS FED SHOULD ACCEPT HIGHER RATE OF INFLATION

*KRUGMAN: FED SHOULD KEEP RATES LOW UNTIL "WELL PAST" 2014

*KRUGMAN SAYS INFLATION EASIER TO CONTROL THAN DEFLATION

*KRUGMAN SAYS U.S. WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITH 4% INFLATION RATE

*KRUGMAN: CONTINUED MASS UNEMPLOYMENT "RECKLESS". NOT INFLATION

*KRUGMAN SAYS U.S. ECONOMY IS "PERSISTENTLY DEPRESSED"

*KRUGMAN SEES "MASSIVE FAILURE" OF SYSTEM WITH 8% JOBLESS RATE

*KRUGMAN SAYS "NO REASON TO PANIC" OVER U.S. DEBT NOW

*KRUGMAN SAYS U.S. DEBT NOT "ANYWHERE CLOSE TO A RED LINE"

*KRUGMAN SAYS SLASHING SPENDING MAKES DEBT PROBLEM WORSE

*KRUGMAN SAYS UNMANAGED ECONOMY SUBJECT TO "EXTREME VOLATILITY"

US CPI in the 1940s...Zee Stabilitee

And from the more open-minded of the two 'Pauls' - it appears his statements lie somewhere in the credible (and not at all psychotic and narcissistic) regions of the mind:

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Krugman agrees that some people shouldn't go to college and also that everyone must be able to go to college. See, everything for everyone...but he also agrees that students are being hurt terribly because they can't find work...so he sympathizes too. A true saint if ever there was one...a most agreeable man.

I understand his thinking exactly, minds should not be wasted, so we must put them to good use by giving them jobs, and the Fed has that mandate, and it's greatest tool is free money, and inflation doesn't matter, so print more.

Of course he can't tell you what those people with such great minds will be doing, but he's a PhD economist he has no time for such trivialities, he just knows that it should be so, so it must be so.

"I'm gratified to see that the analyticial framework, the models, that I believe were good for economics have in fact, they've actually worked stunningly well in this crisis. You know people talk about the failure of economics.. It's only the failure of the stuff that people chose to believe instead of the well-established economics. Your basic textbook macroeconomics, as in our textbook, has worked very very well."

In this post, a sitting Senator is challenged by the floor, another Senator is booed for endorsing Romney, and I talk about some of the politics of what is going on behind the scenes.

You will not read these facts in the news paper.

Shameless plug: the lady who challenges Murkowski is a small business owner in SE AK (see link). If you or anyone you know plans to visit SE AK, please hit the link above and follow the links to their business. And be sure to tell them how much you love the consitution and liberty when you make your arrangements.

I have been trying to convince people (many that are sympathetic to Ron Paul) of the fact that he has many more delegates than reported, and has a very good chance of winning a brokered convention.

A few of them (once they understood the strategy) have called it Machiavellian, under-handed, an exploitation of the rules and other significant compliments.

The (R)s have created their rules, and Paul has used them to his advantage. The MSM and (R) establishment will try everything in their power to prevent this news from becoming public, but it will scarcely alter the fact that Paul has played them like a fiddle. The convention in Tampa will be lively!

CrazyCooter, thank you for serving as a delegate. I was not able to afford being one, so I had to watch from the sidelines. Sounds like things were very contentious and the GOP establishment continued their attempted fraud and below the belt tactics. Also looks like we didn't get as many delegates as we'd hoped, but "soon-to-be former state Republican Party Chairman Randy Reudrich" sure has a sweet ring to it.

Just watch the video a few times. Every time it gets sillier. This is not what this country is about. Not for a GD second! Just sit back, have a drink, and watch it a couple times. Get it? Bloomberg has allowed the PK to make a mockery of himself for our enjoyment! Pat yourselves on the back a couple times guys, no joke. Anyone in their right mind knows damn well what Krugman describes is a far cry from the US of A. Tell me that bloomberg didn't provide sufficient rope for this jackass to hang himself. It is silly. Absolutely silly. Bravo Bloomberg! Give Krugman a whole day running the show, the more time the better. This is fantastic. Three cheers for BB tonight.

If only superman can take all the debt and hurl it into the sun like he did with the nukes in superman III. That would solve our problems. Then we can start a whole new super debt cycle and enjoy growth and proserity

This shit is not that complicated, folks. Below is a link to the history of money, illustrated, with timelines. Time and again it's the banks versus the people. Sometimes it's the people and the government versus the banks (Napoleon, Andrew Jackson). Other times it's the people versus the government and the banks (like now). Krugman is like a priest in Galilleo's day insisting that the Earth is the center of the universe. What an arrogant prick.

You refuse to be a slave, so do I and I moved away from OECD countries since 2003. The government does not own you and does not own part of your labor, citizens are not whores and the government is not their pimp.

The price of gold over the next couple of years will tell us who won the debate.

Agree.

Of course we know how the price of gold will go during the next few years. Just like it's gone the last few years.

Krugman never talks about the downside of his policies, like how how ZIRP is robbing savers of interest, and currency printing is debasing the dollar. Both of these things steal wealth from the people, which Krugman never discusses.

Krugman isn't an economist. An economist can easily see how you don't solve a debt problem with more debt. An economist can easily see how printing more currency debases the currency.

Krugman is a (well paid) lackey for the pirates and criminals looting America.

Printing currency and giving it to the government and bankers is the easiest way to loot wealth from the American people. Krugman supports any cover story they come up with to print currency and give it to the government and bankers.

"Helping the economy recover" is their best cover story. Of course the economy doesn't recover. It's just a cover story for looting.

We're in the final years of America's existence as we know it. The outright looting spree they started in '08 will take the rest of Americans' wealth, destroy the dollar, and destroy what's left of the economy.

Furthermore, how can anyone conclude that I don't know the perfect inflation rate for the good ole USofA. I say it should be 3-4% right now and I don't care how we get there. Maybe we need QE3 to the tune of $5-6Trillion. Stop fighting my brilliance. I am the light.

Republicans earn 60% more college degrees than democrats do (34.5% vs 21.5%). That is a big difference and that sort of gap has existed every year since 1953 when records were first kept.

Republicans also earn more, pay more taxes, give more to charity, are less likely to cheat on their taxes, and are more tolerant. If Dems could keep up with Repubs there would be no national debt, and social problems would be nil. When not in jail or rehab, Dems are the ones who are always clamoring for free stuff from the government so none of this should be a news flash or counter-intuitive.

Liberals consist of two types of people: Useless low income imbeciles looking for free shit from other people and wealthier guilty whites who don't have to live in the same neighborhoods as the people who are looking for free shit and who generally stand to gain in some way by them at our expense. - J0nx

Krugman has the mentality: we can build sea walls and dikes to withstand ordinary weather so why can't we build them to withstand hurricanes. The Fed can probably manage the economy in stable times, but under the current conditions its an imposible task. Sometimes you have to let natural forces do their thing. One thing is for certain, no one is better at cleaning shit up and restoring order from chaos than Mother Nature.

Krugman is the typical dork-that-found-acceptance and will say what ever to defend the fed, he is not an economist he is a shill. He also looks like a dork on crack with those shifty doe eyes. The video just highlights the trouble we are in.

Krugman continuously corrected Ron on his wrong facts and Ron had no reply, he has a couple of soundbites that people gave him but he's never read any of this stuff. He didn't come off good here and this is why he did so poorly in the elections. He rambles a bit too much and no one can follow what his point is, he seemed like a kook

Correction: You can't follow Ron Paul because you haven't taken the time to educate yourself about how the Federal Reserve system redistributes wealth from the poor and middle class to the financial elites. It can't be explained in 10 minutes.

Only one up vote out of 60. Your next post had an up vote almost as soon as it appeared. Uprate your own posts much?

After the revolution, Krugman will be a shrunken head on a warlord's necklace. Right next to Bernake and Geithner. Easy to shrink empty heads and string 'em up through the ears. But that trophy will be worth less than the melt value of Krugman's Nobel Prize.

I refer fellow readers to the period running from the late 1860's to 1896.

We had no central bank; a.k.a Fed

We had a gold standard.

This period was known as "the gilded age" a period of prosperity unmatched in the US American economy. For example, between 1865 and 1898, the output of wheat increased by 256%, corn by 222%, coal by 800% and miles of railway track by 567%. During the 1870s and 1880s, the U.S. economy rose at the fastest rate in its history, with real wages, wealth, and GDP inceasing rapidly.

The Gilded Age saw the greatest period of economic growth in American history. Eventually, the United States produced over one third of certain international goods such as steel and oil. After the short-lived panic of 1873, the economy recovered with the advent of hard money policies and industrialization. The Second Industrial Revolution occurred from 1870 to 1920 and included innovations like the use of electricity in factories. In addition to technological innovations, the United States led the Second Industrial Revolution in great part due to its abundance of natural resources. Since capital and natural resources are complements, the US manufacturing economy became more capital intensive as more and more natural resources were extracted. From 1869 to 1879, the US economy grew at a rate of 6.8% for NNP (GDP minus capital depreciation) and 4.5% for NNP per capita. The economy repeated this period of growth in the 1880s, in which the wealth of the nation grew at an annual rate of 3.8%, while the GDP was also doubled.

While all of that is true, and central banks aren't necessary, the growth of that time period was due mostly in part to the growth potential of the country. At this point in time, growth on global scale is unsustainable. Our industrial age has been based on oil, and represents a tiny fragment of human history. I believe a reversion to mean is coming soon.

During the period I was discussing we had real money, and no central bank.

We also didn't have the regulations on labor or the EPA restricting the use of our resources. The use of our resources was valued not vilified as they are today.

Today being unemployed is enabled by central planning megalomaniacs and fed by various Marxist ideologies such that - society "owes" you something. We live in a fat, lazy, and unscrupulous society that encourages being unproductive and fosters a climate of corruption and quasi-fascist tendencies.

The video was funny and unfortunately you are right. The country is in a steep decline just like our currency, values, and our commitment to our liberties. We are transitioning down the ladder, except for our military we are a second rate nation in terms of almost any measurement except volume of oligarchs and assholes.

The reversion of which you speak is the return of the Dark Ages, where institutions seek to protect their own monopolies at the expense of all others.

If you want truly sustainable growth, then you need to have the individual liberty necessary to make the necessary adjustments.

Besides, the unsustainable portion, IMO, is due to the credit-fueled boom that made it profitable to create it in the first place. Why? Because logical human action dictates economizing behavior when deciding how to best deal with scarcity. Credit totally destroys that equation, leaving massive malinvestment in its wake.

Growth has nothing to do with it. The key consideration is profit, both by the producer and the wages for the worker. With a stable living standard, the worker raises his standard of living. profits and investments are put to work creating new products. Whether the global economy grows is meaningless (just ask China or Brazil).

When you create products that people want, they will be sold, at a profit. Finance based economies like Britain and the US live off of wealth transfers from past production and the creation of fees and interest that siphon off productive capital. This creates inflation, unemployment and morons like Krugman.

Our industrial age WAS based on production and innovation. Energy is just an input. When oil goes, something will replace it- AS LONG AS PROFITABLE OPPORTUNITIES EXIST.

This is enhanced if you minimize government (or get rid of it all together) and eliminate central banks and legal tender laws.

Oh, stuff and nonsense. The Gilded Age bobd referred to predates the discovery of oil in the US by thirty years. Certainly in the 20th century, oil (you should pardon the expression) greased the wheels for the economy, but our declining growth rates in the 21st century are a symptom not of oil depletion, but of frontier depletion. You can no longer say to the ambitious "Go west, young man"; there is no more West or East or North or South. Every reasonably habitable place on earth (and some not so habitable) has been occupied. For an economic system built on growth, it's the lack of frontiers, not resources that count. As one resource grows more expensive, another replaces it; we can deal with that. But without a new frontier to expand to, the 7 billion of us just turn inward with the unhappy consequences we have seen.

I don't think Newt is a very smart man, but like a stopped clock, he is from time to time, accidentally correct. A moon base would be a new frontier. Yes, it's expensive and dangerous, but weren't the first voyages from England to America the same? If only for the symbolism of having a new place to grow, it would be important.

I agree with the above (absent government intervention we could go back to growing GDP ar 5%+ albeit with more vollatillity) but the gold standard isnt the reason for the proseprity. Nor is it without SEVERE faults. What happens with your gold standard if we find a massive new and cheap source? If we had a diamond standard Id buy Diamond Nexus and make myself king of the world. But go look at what happened to the Roman economy everytime they conquered a new civiliAtion that had a stash of gold or look at the Spanish when they discoveeed the new world. On the otherhand go look at what happened in the US when thr industrial revolution allowed real GDP to grow MUCH faster then gold production. The lack of money strangled the economy. What we need to do is just set monetary supply at whatever level will create 1% inflation (or inline with population growth) so that interest rates can be set properly. What pisses me off about the gold standard guys is that they only support it because they think it will make them rich. They want to get paid far more for their gold then they paid for it. What if we go to a gold standard but the price for it is that we confiscate your gold and pay you what you paid for it? Or instead of gold and silver, what if we use unobtainium or some other metal that does EXACTLY the same thing but doesnt let you tax the world economy and become the new ruling class?

The 'gold standard' doesn't replace fiat money -- it is used as a benchmark to it. No one can set a monetary supply to 1% inflation because no one person/committee can figure out that problem. There is NO perfect system. As for gold bugs wanting to profit on their holdings, so what? Right now, governments are profiting on FIAT.

Pick a basket of basic goods. 1 apple, 1 bushel of wheat, 1 average house, etc.. MITs 10,000 prices poject for example. Monitor it daily. When TTM inflation (absent tech modifiers and other CPI garbage) goes umder 1% turn on the printimg press. And if it goes over 2% turn on the incenerator.

As for not wantimg to get rich by making the fed buy your gold for $10,000 an ounce, why did one of them in this thread mention buying an island with his VIG. I am fine with a PHYSICAL standard where we use something that we know will grow at 1% a year(total stock not production). But Im against using something that people have stockpiled beforehand so they can get their vig. All we do is replave one set of elites with anoher.

If we do go to a gold standard or an unobtainium standard and people are allowed to benefit from the change the politically connected and a handful of lucky people that guessed right what would be used are going to own EVERYTHING.

The gold standard has some faults, that's a given. The scenarios you described (found gold) are no worse than what happens regularly with a fiat currency.

The correct answer is a gold standard backed by the Fed with an international currency for trade, rather than floating rates. The Fed cannot increase money without a clear and evident reason to do so (this is basically how the Fed functioned for years prior to the closing of the gold window, with only the war and post-war era as periods of extreme price inflation). As long as the dollar is a reserve currency, backing it with gold is a non-starter (for reasons addressed when Nixon closed the window).

The "missing money" which "strangled" the economy during the gold era wasn't an issue of an economy growing so fast money couldn't keep up - it was an issue of the economy moving too fast for its own good. Even with a Fed this happens. It's also worth noting that while there was no Fed during the Gilded Age, there were Greenbacks. The US issued currency several times during the Civil War and even afterward, and they circulated for years. The Greenback Party started as a means to get this currency reinstated and have the government control money. It was a bad idea that eventually became a 'good' one - as we frequently see in politics.

One thing I have learned in managing inventories and prices in my industry is you need a benchmark. If you want to know how to manage supply or alter demand using pricing tools, you must have a benchmark. We have no such benchmark. The logical benchmark is gold.

Krugman sounds completely insane when reduced to sound bytes. I can't wait to listen to Schiff radio tomorrow. No doubt Peter will go apeshit on Krugman's lunacy. Infact, I doubt he will be able to resist doing a youtube video tonight on it.

Fully aware that I am Austrian/ZH biased, I listened as seriously to Krugman as I possibly could... now, after watching Paul vs Paul, TPTB are much less sinister to me than they were before. They really believe in their delusional bullshit, totally blind, like little children defending their belief in Santa... It was really stunning to watch this... can they really be THAT NAIVE?? Or is Krugman just a well selected idiot-puppet to unwittingly perform one more trick??

No they aren't naive nor is Krugman well selected. He is nothing more than one of thousands of other Keysnian iBOTS out there. He is as dispensible as the rest of us but don't for a second think TPTB are stupid or to be underestimated. That sort of thinking is what prevents the sheeple from waking up to the reality of our nightmare.

At least, that's how I've seen them compared. I would tend to agree. I'm not sure which is easier to control, yes probably inflation. But to overshoot deflation is thought to be more thoroughly lethal than the other direction.

Has it ever happened? Was the hyperinflation of Germany worse than any deflationary period?

Krugman claims simultaneously that the purpose of the Fed is to avoid depressions and reduce the duration and severity of recessions and then claims this to now be a Depression and that it's two long recessions and that it could be a lost decade and it's half way through. For some reason the prior 10 years doesn't matter because there was a housing bubble I guess...

More TARP, TALF, HAMP!!! More Cash for Clunkers!!! More Solyndras!!! More More More!!!

Keynseian economists are adult children that can only say that one word - MORE!

That is precisely wrong: you can print money to fight deflation indefinitely (example: Japan). You need to raise interest rates to fight inflation: impossible in case of US, since with high interest rates there is no way to service the US government debt. Hence, high level of inflation means collapse of US dollar and total collapse of US economy as we know it.

Inflation and deflation are merely effects. The market will control them if left alone.

The problem has been who benefits and who loses from each action. Attempting to control them has always sounded appealing, but the cure is always worse than the condition. Malinvestment is a bitch, but it has to correct to re-establish equilibrium. Intervention only makes the condition worse, yielding a bigger and bigger correction.

We've run so far from equilibrium, it is no longer possible to reach. Thus, the lost decades.

It would require devastating deflation and the creation of new currency systems. Unfortunately, we will still have to bear the pain of the correction. When? When confidence fails from the exit of the possessors of wealth. No, we will not be given fair warning.

The elites can ignore arguments about freedom as they see it as somehow quaint. Like parents, making their kids go to bed because they know what's good for them. The difference is that most of us don't make our living off of our kids. The elites would starve without us, so maybe we are more like their cattle. Can you say "STAMPEDE"!

It's going to be chaotic alright. Ron Paul talks as if the usa gubbermint gets to decide when to end the fed. LMAO! Earth to Ron Paul, the fed gangsters own everyone except you. The rest of the world will decide when the federal reserve note is worthless, not the CONgreff.

Only an idiot says someone "RUNS" an economy. Economies ARE the people! RESPONSIBILITY is the job of the clowns "in charge." Ron Paul? YOU'RE A CLOWN! Listen..."there's no there here." This is all a bunch of abstract bullshit. "More at 7" as they say. EMPIRICAL DATA is what runs an economy...how this DATA is collected, sorted, disbursed RUNS EVERYTHING. that's why "natural gas" is such a lay-up (let alone Apple i might add)...whatever a bunch of "let me tell you what an economy is" clowns say...the NATURAL GAS SPACE gives you DATA. "if i can measure it i can make money on it." PERIOD. Everything else is just "death and taxes." "but the prices have collapsed" you say! "and therefore no one uses natural gas anymore?" how does that work? "if the price collapses wouldn't people use more of it?" and of course "not unless you're up to eyeballs in UAW contracts and electrical utility money" and want to deny entry into the market of natural gas tech. so instead..."here comes tens of billions into battery tech." wtf? how is that "economical"? JUST FAIL NOW PLEASE! success comes from saying "i'm not going to pay for that." and "no, i'm not going to pay for that either." and "how much? GO PHUCK YOURSELF!" and..."then you spend even less than that" if you're lucky.

Ron Paul wants to give more power to the states, but in my state Georgia it is full of sadistic christ tard fascist and I'm afraid giving more power to these guys will turn out bad.

For this reason I just can't get behind Ron Paul. I do like his stance on getting rid of the unconstitutional non war time standing Army though, but that's mostly because I'm jealous the war criminals [masquerading as the official U.S. armed forces] are better at looting the treasury than me.

Because you're oblivious to what the consequences for some state behaving like that would be in their relations with other "better" states. If you really think the rest of the union would tolerate them and continue to trade with them and if you think people who lived in that state wouldn't leave en mass you just wont be able to spot your own ignorance to what the reality is.

The reality that like with a business man being a racists and cutting his potential clientele in half and going bankrupt because of it so too an entire state behaving what goes against what the rest believes is good behavior would get punished and eventually fall apart.

Ron Paul is the most intelligent politician we've had since Ross Perot, but he doesn't have any charts. Ross had some great charts of the giant sucking sound. It's almost too late to do the charts for the billions in foreign aid for the leases on the billion dollar foreign bases filled with billions in planes and such, but he could do something like the talking bears. He could do the Carl Sagan thing like billions and billions of gallons of gas in Afghanistan, but he needs charts or a slogan or something.

Hey, hey. They both figured out the government was spending too much money. Ross actually figured out the tax base was heading to China. Paul doesn't worry about that because he always has worked for the government. Of course Ross got rich programming the percentage to take out of each paycheck for social security. I think Ross was a little smarter, not that it matters. Goldman Sachs, J.P Morgan and helicopter Ben decide what comes up on the teleprompter anyway. I get red arrows unless I agree Ron Paul is a genius, so I figured Ross Perot was popular too. He had charts.

Krugman uses the same logic my wife used during the housing boom. If we can loan the money, than it must be a good idea otherwise they wouldn't loan it to us.

This is the same ideology the europeans use, and it is obviously working out fine for them, see, the IMF is there to loan them more money to pay their debt. What is the problem here? Why should the next generation have any expectation of being handed over a solvent country? Why are they so selfish anyway?

The only way to solve a debt problem is with more debt

-Paul Krugman

Come to think of it, lets strike down the law preventing consumer from paying off their credit cards with other credit cards. Just pay your credit cards with new credit cards. Just keep piling it on. Done and done. Brilliant!

As predicted RP did a poor job making his case to anyone that isnt already a anti-fed goldbug. PK was full of shit but far more eloquint.

RP should have focused ONLY on how bad the government is at making economic decisions and how wastefully they deploy capital and the opportunity cost of taking that capital from private industry. Even if you are spending money private industry isnt currwntly depolying, when it comes time to repay the debt you must starce industry of capital.

RP could have DESTROYED Krugman if he backed Freidmans call for a computer to replace the fed, issuing money when TTMinflation (based on MITs 10,000 prices project not CPI) is below 1% and destroying money when its over 2%. That kills the deflation arguement. Hit him for fixing interest rates at 1% when inflation is 10%.

But RP couldnt even describe his alternative currency theory. Give an example. Tell Krugman you want people to be able to pay for taxes and pay their taxes with shares of GLD. But hes old and gets distracted just like someones grandpa.